Imprisoned, Forgotten, and Deported
look at the realities and character of immigration detention in the United States, particularly in the South. The goal of the conference was to increase public awareness of the detention system and its impact on families and communities, show how faith communities are ministering to detained immigrants and their families, and explore how more progressive and just policies towards immigrants and detention can emerge. The detention of immigrants in the U.S. is a dire human rights issue that calls out to people of faith and other people of good will for a just response.</p>
Immigration Detention, Advocacy, and the Faith Community
By Fred Kammer, S.J.
The Audacity of Eucharistic Hope and the Legacy of Lynching
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By Alex Mikulich, Ph.D.
Catholic Social Thought and "the Law"
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By Fred Kammer, S.J.
There are often times when good people find themselves in serious disagreement with the prescriptions of “the law”—abortion, wars, the treatment of immigrants, the death penalty, etc. In the United States, we have a strong tradition of “the rule of law” to which many appeal as if such an appeal should end debate and assure obedience to legal prohibitions or statutory mandates. Just what is the Catholic position on such conflicts between statute and conscience?
That “Merciless Law”: The Faith Response to Alabama’s HB 56
By Edward B. Arroyo, S.J. and Sue Weishar, Ph.D.
The Debt Debate Debacle
By Fred Kammer, S.J.
The nation was held prisoner this past summer as our politicians played “chicken” with one another about raising the debt ceiling, slashing spending, increasing revenue, or somehow reneging on our fiscal obligations to ourselves and to external creditors. A last-minute deal was reached at the end of July, but it still cost us our Triple-A credit rating. Now there is a new congressional “supercommittee” at work on the debt.
Catholic Social Thought and the Death Penalty
By Alex Mikulich, Ph.D.
The U.S. Catholic Bishops, in their 2005 pastoral letter A Culture of Life and the Death Penalty, reaffirm the teaching of Pope John Paul II, of the Roman Catholic magisterium, and of U.S. Catholic Bishops since 1979, that “the death penalty is unnecessary and unjustified in our time and circumstances.”
Four fundamental points inform their judgment:
Louisiana’s Historic Opportunity to End the Death Penalty and Affirm Life
By Alex Mikulich, Ph.D.
In September 2011, Louisiana Catholics Committed to the Repeal of the Death Penalty publicly launched its campaign to end the death penalty in Louisiana. The Louisiana Conference of Catholic Bishops initiated this campaign in 2010. This essay highlights key findings of a comprehensive study of Louisiana’s use of the death penalty that I have conducted over the past year. The full study, coauthored with Sophie Cull of the Louisiana Capital Appeals Project, was part of the campaign’s launch.
My Experience in Immigration Detention
By Omar Hassan
Louisiana’s Historic Opportunity to End the Death Penalty and Affirm Life
by Alex Mikulich, Ph. D.
In September 2011, Louisiana Catholics Committed to Repeal of the Death Penalty publicly launched its campaign to end the death penalty in Louisiana. The Louisiana Conference of Catholic Bishops initiated this campaign in 2010. This essay highlights key findings of a comprehensive study of Louisiana’s use of the death penalty that I have conducted over the past year. The full study, co-authored with Sophie Cull of the Louisiana Capital Appeals Project, was part of the campaign launch.
A Curious Case of Racial Amnesia
<p>Since the Supreme Court nearly declared the death penalty unconstitutional in Furman v. Georgia (1972), juries in Caddo Parish have voted to impose the death penalty on 16 men and one woman. Thirteen of these cases involved black defendants, and research demonstrates that the combination of a black defendant and a white victim exponentially increases the likelihood of aggressive prosecution.</p>
Dr. Alex Mikulich, Research Fellow
“Is it a prerequisite for jury service that you do not object to the Confederate flag flying outside the courthouse?”1 This is a real and legal question 150 years after the Civil War. The Louisiana Supreme Court and the Caddo Parish District Attorney seemed to assume that objection to the symbol of slavery constitutes bias on behalf of a potential juror, in the hearing of a death-penalty appeal on May 9, 2011.